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Sunday, April 7, 2013

Day one and plans for the week

Phew, day one of going unprocessed draws to a close.

This morning, as I contemplated getting out of bed, I thought about the meals we had planned for the day when suddenly I realized that our normal Sunday morning breakfast contained one of those secret processed foods! Eeek! We usually have steel cut oatmeal on the weekends, made with milk and water, combined with raisins and apples cooked with brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter. Milk...seemingly innocuous, is (when you think about it) actually quite processed between it's raw stage and what we buy at the grocery store. I came downstairs and told my hubby what I'd realized. He looked at me with one eyebrow arched and said, "Abby, that is not why we're doing this. Maybe we should say 'minimally processed.' We are not eliminating milk from our oatmeal; we're eliminating chemicals and other bad stuff from our lives." Oh, yeah, that's right.

So for breakfast, we had our normal steel cut oatmeal. I even left the brown sugar coated apples (at hubby's request), although I will continue to use maple syrup when I'm just making oatmeal for me.

For lunch, I had leftovers from last night's tater tot hot dish - the unprocessed part, covered with mashed potatoes instead of tater tots. It was delicious.

Then I got busy in the kitchen. This unprocessed thing takes a lot of planning and a lot of time. :) I started by making these wheat thins from KAF, as written up on Smitten Kitchen. Hubby and I are both concerned about having some unprocessed snacks in the house, so that we don't cave in to a craving in a weak moment. They were relatively easy to throw together, using my food processor to mix everything together and my pasta roller to roll out the dough. As Deb suggested, I made a double batch. And they were...okay. I'm hoping that they're better tomorrow, and I'm positive that they'd be better with cheese than just plain. I bookmarked this list from the Kitchn of other homemade crackers to try.

For snacks, I had part of a banana and some almonds. Hubby had leftover garlic bread with eggs.

For dinner, we had chicken noodle soup with fresh pasta, with grilled cheese sandwiches. This is where the mega-planning comes in.

I made this oatmeal wheat bread from KAF, subbing in white whole wheat flour for most of the all-purpose, and multiplying all of the ingredients by 150% to fit in my large pullman pan. This bread is mostly whole grain (oats and whole wheat flour) and uses honey instead of sugar, and it was completely delicious. We used a little less than half of the loaf for our grilled cheese sandwiches tonight. I'll use some for the little guy's lunches this week. The rest of the loaf will be used for eggs-in-a-nest on Thursday for hubby and the kids when I'm at parent-teacher conferences.

I made a large batch of chicken stock (recipe tomorrow), with three pounds of chicken. I used 8 cups of the stock for tonight's soup, and froze the other 5 cups. I used half of the chicken for tonight's soup, and saved the other half ~ part for tomorrow night's fried rice, and part for Wednesday night's chef salad.

I made 4 eggs worth of fresh pasta, subbing in white whole wheat flour for most of the all-purpose. I used 6 ounces in tonight's soup, and froze two other batches of 6 ounces for future batches of soup.

It was a busy day, but makes me feel better about the week ahead. It also makes me feel like I can make it through this month, as long as I have a full day in the kitchen each weekend. :)

2 comments:

Wow...an impressive beginning! I'm working on trying to cut out Cheetos. I figure that would be a major start for me...I don't eat many snacks, but those that I do...well, it is not unusual me to eat a Cheeto or two a day. I don't know what exactly to replace them with...there is nothing like a Cheeto (thank goodness, right?) Bad me. I haven't had any since Saturday night (in preparation for giving them up). You are doing so much better than I ever will.

Great start!! Looking forward to following your month. We don't buy a lot of processed foods - crackers mostly - which I know B is not willing to give up. Not much cereal. I had not realized how much food I bought now that wasn't processed. Times have changed in this house as well.